Can you be more specific, or you just think the whole thing sucks? Please keep in mind that this is based on the Reckoning/For The Faithful version, not Workingman's Dead. That difference is really just a key change.

It's really wrong as transcribed here. It's a little bugger of a song: five verses, three separate progressions, all of which soulnd nearly identical.

The Dead usually played it in C, though they did drop it to A, especially when they slowed it down in the Wall of Sound period. (It's in either C or A, not G or E, as the progression begins on the 5th.) Play along with a 73/4 version that's in A (DP14) and listen for the changes, as my spaces are disappearing. Rest assured this is correct.

So, here's my transcription -- in A, where I have a chance at singing it. :lol:

E G D
I sat down to my supper, ?Twas a bottle of red whisky,
F#m
I said my prayers and went to bed, That?s the last they saw of me.
E D A G D
Don?t murder me, I beg of you, don?t murder me.
E D A
Please, don?t murder me.

F#m E G D
When I awoke, the Dire Wolf, Six hundred pounds of sin,
E
Was grinning at my window, All I said was, ?Come on in.?
D E A G D
Don?t murder me, I beg of you, don?t murder me.
E D A
Please, don?t murder me.

F#m E G D
The Wolf came in, I got my cards, We sat down for a game.
E
I cut my deck to the Queen of Spades, But the cards were all the same.
D E A G D
Don?t murder me, I beg of you, don?t murder me.
E D A
Please, don?t murder me.

OK folks, I'll try this one more time, then I'll leave it alone. Sabby's transcription is the same as mine, with one exception.......it's in a different key......but sabby says that mine is really wrong. As I pointed out in my first response, this version is based on the version that you will find on the Reckoning/For The Faithful CD. And I am quite confident that if you tune your guitar to E=440, that you will find that the chords are correct as posted. As Catfish John noted, transpose it from G to E, as Sabby has done, and you have the Workingman's Dead version.

I point out, as I have many times before, that it is the interval of the chord changes that makes it correct, not necesarily having it in the exact key that suits any one in particulars favor. That said, I have strived to match the key most commonly used by the Dead. This particular song is offered in a number of different keys, so I picked one. As with all the tabs, I note at the top, directly under the title, the source (album); in this case, Reckoning.

OK folks, I'll try this one more time, then I'll leave it alone. Sabby's transcription is the same as mine, with one exception.......it's in a different key......but sabby says that mine is really wrong.

My bad, man. A while back, I got a terribly off version of Dire Wolf from the web and had this in mind when I replied to CIA MAN. (I just today stumbled across this forum.) I thought I got my originally screwed version from this site, but, alas, it must have been from a different place.

I also learned this in G off an electic version. One note. I think the last chorus does not have the C to F walkup (before repeating the "please don't..." twice). I think it mirrors the chorus after the verses that begin with Am. i.e. C--E7--Am.

E G D
I sat down to my supper. 'twas a bottle of red whiskey.
A Ab-G-F#
I said my prayers and went to bed. That's the last they saw of me.
E D A C#7 F#m E D A
Don't murder me. I beg of you, don't murder me. Please don't murder me.

F#m E A G D
When I awoke, the dire wolf, six hundred pounds of sin, was grinning at my.
E D E A
window. All I said was 'come on in.' don't murder me. I beg of you, don't
C#7 F#m E-D A
murder me. Please don't murder me.

F#m E A G D
The Wolf came in, I got my cards, We sat down for a game.
E
I cut my deck to the Queen of Spades, But the cards were all the same.
D-E A C#7 F#m E-D A
Don't murder me, I beg of you, don't murder me. Please, don't murder me.

E G D
In the backwash of Fennario, the black and bloody mire,
D E
The dire wolf collect his due while the boys sing 'round the fire.
D E A C#7 F#m E D A
Don't murder me. I beg of you, don't murder me. Please don't murder me.

So, Dire Wolf is a tune that used to truly confound me back in the day. It always sounded so simple, and I could always approximate it, but I could always tell that I was off.

Well, today, I finally got it down. I came in here to compare notes and see if rukind had the same progression, or something different.

Well, for the most part, it is the same, but there are three places where I came up with something different.

First, I hear a C, Bb, F on the "I beg of you, don't murder me" in the first two choruses. This is interesting because this turnaround goes from being in the middle of the chorus the first two times to being in the middle of the verse the second two times (which plays in to my general comments below).

Second, and probably least debatable, coming into the second chorus, it goes Am, G, F, C, Bb, F, as opposed to the G, F, G, C, Bb, F, (last three chords being my interpretation). So, basically, "don't murder me, I beg of you" is over G>F>G the first time, but Am>G>F the second time (G and F are flipped).

Thirdly, and imo most interestingly, during the "I beg of you, don't murder me" in the third and fourth choruses, I hear it as C, G#+, Am rather than C, E7, Am. Both sound good, but I think the G#+ is more colorful and kind of more characteristic of the jazz elements in much of the GD's songwriting by that time. Incidentally, the beginning of the chorus is back to G>F>G for these two choruses.

On a more general note, and regardless of whether one plays it my way or the way posted on rukind, in figuring this out today, I discovered that the deceptive simplicity of Dire Wolf really kind of encapsulates the genius of the GD. First, on the surface, it is a simple folk/blues tune; however, once you dig in you find the odd jazz substitution (C, G#+, Am) coming in to play. Second, like Dark Star and the blues, it implies a tonal center, but the tonal center constantly shifts. The Bb implies that it is in F major, but the G major implies that it is in C (G needing to be a minor 7 to fit in F major). Third, you have the entire progression itself progressing through stages, using the Am as a pivot point (which, of course, works well for C major, and only slightly less so for F major, where it should be a minor 7). Of course, the song ends in C, so I guess that wins out .

Finally, you realize that the progression progresses right along with the lyrics, up to and including the return to the original verse progression at the point where the story returns to its starting point, but with the slight alterations making it a resolution as much as the closing of a loop.

And, as if to drive the point home (and int his I address a point by a previous poster), the first chorus after the last verse has the C, Bb, F turnaround, while the C, G#+, Am turnaround is used during the repeated verse.

Absolute and sublimely subtle brilliance.

Oh, one final note: the song is in the key of A/D on Workingman's, and in F/Bb on the live version that Bobby sings on bonus tracks of the Workingman's remaster.